Latin Pulse : World Beat Meets Tradition in ‘El Circo’

Mecano--one of the most intelligent and popular Spanish music groups, outselling even Julio Iglesias in its native country--has returned from a four-year recording hiatus with an album that finds the pop-rock band experimenting with a variety of musical textures.

But the new strains--from a touch of flamenco to salsa--seem more fashion-conscious than heartfelt.

In this roundup of key recent Spanish-language albums, a more impressive collection comes from Maldita Vecindad, a Mexico City rock group that combines a world beat sensibility with Mexican folk tradition.

* * * * MALDITA VECINDAD

“El Circo”

BMG International

“A stop sign, a green light, a stop sign,” a line from one of the album’s songs, summarizes nicely part of the musical direction of Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio.

The music of the group--whose name translates roughly as Cursed or Damned Neighborhood--seems to flow in rhythm with the motorists of any large city in the world, giving a feeling of the dreams and fears of the people behind the wheel.

“El Circo” captures both the tension of city driving and occasionally the freedom of the open road. There are moments of calm and reflection that suddenly give way to the hustle and bustle of the street, only to again accelerate suddenly to 90 m.p.h. with the burst of a saxophone.

In its second album, Maldita Vecindad continues to draw upon a variety of world beat musical rhythms, including the ceremonious bent of Algerian rai . In “Mare,” Maldita Vecindad employs bombas --a custom of southeastern Mexico wherein some spoken-word excerpts are thrown in unexpectedly. “Solin” entwines the metallic Arabic sounds with distorted guitars and relentless tropical percussion.

In song after song, Maldita Vecindad reflects a quality of contemporary expression that helps combat the widely held and destructive view in many Latin American countries that the only true art is found in folklore.

“El Circo” is an achievement in the school of contemporary music that bonds the native roots of pasodoble and cumbia with the universal rhythms of calypso and rock ‘n’ roll.

In Brief

* * * Jorge Reyes and Suso Saiz, “Cronica de Castas,” Lejos del Paraiso. Reyes’ goal as an artist has been to fuse the music of pre-Columbian civilizations with contemporary musical patterns. Having gained acclaim throughout Europe, this Mexican keyboardist collaborates here with Spanish guitarist Suso Saiz, a member of the innovative Orquesta de las Nubes band. These six tracks are named after some of the many social groups--castes--that developed in Mexico as a result of the intermarriage of Spaniards, Indians and blacks. The tone enveloping each piece seems reminiscent of a visceral new age approach, but in fact they are the virgin sounds of pre-Hispanic instruments (stones, ocarinas, hollow objects, tortoise shells, teponaztles , tree trunks, etc.). They combine to help make “Cronica de Castas” a dark and fascinating ritual of sound.

* * Mecano, “Aidalai,” BMG International. So how does Mecano--a group long recognized for its skill in mixing simple ballads and techno-pop--do with flamenco and salsa? Not too well. The album--which also dabbles in such foreign elements as industrial dance, progressive rock and even smooth jazz--seems like an attempt to provide something for everybody. The execution, from the musicianship to the songs themselves to the captivating voice of Ana Torroja, is consistently strong. But the group sells itself short when it downplays its own style in favor of trying to capture a little bit of everybody else’s style--at least everybody who’s popular.

* * Cecilia Toussaint, “Tirame al Corazon,” Sony. Since her debut a decade ago, Toussaint has been a compelling singer because of her all-out, emotional intensity. But she moved away in her last album from that exciting blues and street rock approach to a more reserved mixture of jazz and ballad elements--and the result was less striking. She seems to have realized her mistake and takes steps to correct the problem in this album. And things work just fine on some heartfelt, out-and-out rock ‘n’ roll in “Tirame al Corazon”(“Shoot Me in the Heart”) and on the energetic cumbia touches of “Duena de mi Esclavitud” (“Owner of My Slavery”). But elsewhere, she is caught between the old boldness and recent timidity. By again softening some arrangements, she sacrifices the spontaneity and purity that once made her the original heroine of the underground in Mexico.